Free Girls, Muddy, Moody Yet Magnificent by Sue Limb

suddenly. I still hadn’t told Chloe about Tam’s absurd ‘appendicitis’ scare last night, because I was kind of ashamed of Tam at the moment. But I had to come clean now.
    ‘Guess what,’ I told Chloe. ‘This is kind of tacky, but Tam’s involved with a married man.’
    ‘ What?! ’ gasped Chloe.
    ‘Plus,’ I went on, ‘she’s so totally besotted with him that she staged an attack of fictional appendicitis last night rather than go to stay with Granny.’
    ‘You’re kidding!’ breathed Chloe. ‘My God! Tam is so daring! This guy must be a five-star hunk!’
    ‘He must be a loser,’ I retorted. I didn’t want Chloe to treat this Tam business as a rather stylish joke. Chloe adores Tam, which is fine, as long as she adores me even more and is basically on my side whenever there’s a fight between me and Tam. ‘And if he’s seeing Tam behind his wife’s back, it won’t be long before he’s seeing somebody else behind Tam’s back.’
    ‘You don’t know that,’ argued Chloe. ‘It might just be that she’s going to be the love of his life. My dad was married to Caroline when he met my mum.’ Whoops! I’d forgotten about Caroline. Mind you, Chloe’s dad has started to spend all his time out in the Middle East, so I don’t think Chloe’s mum can still be quite the love of his life as much as she was in the early days.
    ‘Hmmm. Maybe you’re right,’ I admitted. ‘I suppose you can’t be in love with two people at the same time – can you?’
    ‘Sometimes,’ twinkled Chloe naughtily, ‘I think I could manage five or six.’
    We laughed, and then worked in silence for a bit. I was wondering about Chloe’s state of mind – regarding Beast and Brendan in particular. I thought I’d do a little gentle probing.
    ‘I saw Jess and Fred in the park last night.’
    ‘You didn’t say you’d been to the park!’ Chloe sounded a tiny bit jealous.
    ‘Oh, I just went for a stroll to clear my head. They’re working for Major Events, you know – the same as Beast.’
    I watched Chloe like a hawk. I knew I was playing with fire, here, mentioning such dangerous subjects. Unfortunately, her face was completely hidden by sunglasses, the wide khaki brim of her hat, and some handfuls of her wild red hair which had started to fall down. I couldn’t tell if she was blushing or not.
    ‘Lucky devils,’ she said. ‘Spending the whole summer organising parties. That’s my kind of work.’
    ‘It was so amazing of you to agree to work here instead,’ I piled it on. ‘But it might have been a bit weird working with Beast, anyway, mightn’t it?’
    ‘Weird?’ said Chloe. ‘Why?’ She looked a tiny bit awkward.
    ‘Well, what if he was turning on the charm with some new girl, right under your nose, or something?’
    Chloe shrugged. ‘Cool,’ she said. ‘No problem.’ I hoped she was telling the hundred per cent truth, but I was still kind of in the dark.
    ‘What did exactly happen between you and Beast, then?’ I blurted out suddenly.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Chloe. ‘And that’s the truth. I got in a bit of a state about him, but I soon realised it was a total waste of time and he wasn’t interested.’ She didn’t sound tragic, just brisk and matter-of-fact.
    ‘Will you be OK if we run into him in Newquay?’
    ‘Of course I will!’ groaned Chloe. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
    ‘He made you cry.’
    ‘Zoe – loads of stuff makes me cry! Adverts with puppies make me cry – but I don’t avoid watching them!’
    ‘OK, OK.’ I flapped my arms about to indicate defeat. ‘Of course. Sorry.’
    We went on weeding for ages. I was reassured about what she’d said about Beast. That guy was bad news and I didn’t want Chloe to get hurt again.
    ‘There was one thing about Beast,’ said Chloe suddenly, ‘that I didn’t tell you.’
    ‘What?’ I demanded anxiously.
    ‘Well, after he, like, made it clear he wasn’t interested, uhhh . . . Well, I sent him a few stupid texts. Kind of . . .